How to See All Sites in SharePoint: Admin Access Made Simple

I spent a week hunting for a SharePoint site that vanished from navigation. Turns out it was hiding in plain sight in the admin center.

The SharePoint admin dashboard shows every site collection, even the ones users create accidentally. No special tools needed—just the right permissions and 30 seconds of know-how.

You’ll see active sites, deleted ones waiting in recycling bin, and even those mysterious “microsoft” prefixed URLs. The list updates in real-time, so what you see is what you get.

Works for SharePoint Online in any Microsoft 365 tenant. Here’s how to access it without calling support.

What Youll Need

Instructions

Here’s the process I use to access every corner of SharePoint without missing a thing.

Sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center using your admin credentials. In the left-hand navigation, expand Show all if necessary, then select SharePoint under the Admin centers section.

This opens the SharePoint Admin Center, where you’ll see a dashboard with various management options. Verify you’re in the correct environment by checking the URL—it should end with /admin/sharepoint.

In the left-hand menu of the SharePoint Admin Center, click Sites. This loads a list of all active and classic sites across your organization. The default view shows Active sites, but you can toggle to Classic sites if needed.

Wait for the list to fully populate—larger tenants may take 10-15 seconds to display all entries. Use the search bar at the top to filter by name or URL if you’re looking for something specific.

Each site entry displays key details like URL, Template, Storage used, and Last activity date. Click any column header to sort the list by that attribute—useful for identifying inactive or oversized sites.

To export the full list, click Export to CSV in the top-right corner. This generates a downloadable file with all site data, which you can open in Excel for deeper analysis or auditing.

For a truly comprehensive view, click the Deleted sites tab in the Sites section. This shows sites in the Recycle Bin, which are retained for 93 days after deletion before permanent removal. You can restore any of these if needed.

If you’re missing expected sites, verify your admin permissions. Global admins and SharePoint admins have full visibility, but customized roles might restrict access to certain site collections.

For granular control, open SharePoint Online Management Shell and run the command Get-SPOSite -Limit All. This retrieves every site, including those not visible in the admin UI due to permission hierarchies.

The output includes Url, Title, Template, and Owner fields. To filter by a specific property, pipe the results to Where-Object—for example, Get-SPOSite -Limit All | Where-Object {$_.Template -eq “68”} lists all modern team sites.

Tips and Common Mistakes

These practical insights will help you navigate SharePoint administration more efficiently and avoid common pitfalls.

Admin Center Navigation: Always verify you’re in the correct environment by checking that the URL ends with /admin/sharepoint as mentioned in Step 1. I’ve seen admins accidentally manage the wrong tenant because they skipped this simple check.

Patience with Large Tenants: In Step 2, remember that larger organizations may need the full 10-15 seconds for the sites list to populate completely. Don’t assume the list is complete just because you see some entries immediately.

PowerShell Precision: When using the Get-SPOSite -Limit All command in Step 5, be aware that the output can be extensive. I recommend piping it to Format-Table or exporting to CSV for better readability of the Url, Title, Template, and Owner fields.

Permission Awareness: As noted in Step 4, if you’re missing expected sites, double-check your admin permissions. Custom roles might restrict your view, even if you have SharePoint admin privileges. Global admins have the most comprehensive access.

Frequently Asked Questions

Now you know how to view all SharePoint sites with ease! 🎯 Whether you’re an admin or a user, these steps ensure you never miss a site again. Next, explore site permissions to manage access effectively and keep your SharePoint environment organized.